


Twenty-Eight Years

by deborah_judge



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Unreliable Narrator, Unresolved Sexual Tension, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-12 20:36:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/815790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deborah_judge/pseuds/deborah_judge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're shielded from the curse in one endless day that repeats itself, and maybe nothing can ever change.  Captain of Hearts (Killian/Cora), with Killian/Milah and Cora/Rumpelstiltskin in the backstory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twenty-Eight Years

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Pocochina for betareading.

The first day is the same as the next, and the days that will follow. "Twenty-eight years will pass," Cora says, "but you won't feel it." They're in a small clearing, a green place saved from the curse. 

He sets to gathering firewood. The hook is good for most shipboard tasks, but less useful on land, so Cora helps him, for once not using magic. It doesn't surprise him that she's strong, she lifts the wood easily. He's trusted himself to her for twenty-eight years, he realizes. He's going to need to rely on her, in so many ways. Even the refuge they're in is built on her power.

In the afternoon he sits by the water and idly spears fish with his hook for dinner. Then he walks the length of their island. It's small, and there is no boat to go to sea. He misses being on water, and he doesn't know how he's going to keep sane walking on land for twenty-eight years. Maybe he'll build a boat, he thinks, but even with two hands he couldn't build one in a day, and already he understands that this one day is all he's going to have.

When evening falls Cora waves one hand to draw magic around them to make a shelter. With a gesture she summons two beds, near but not touching, then lies down in one. Killian sits down on the other, and is struck by how strange it feels. For all his enjoyment of the ways women respond to his taunts, he hasn't lain down near a woman since Milah. Cora pats the bed next to hers and Killian wonders if she's ever had a friend. "Tell me something," she says. "Why do you want to kill Rumpelstiltskin?"

So Killian lies down on his back, doesn't look at her, and tells her the story about Milah and the crocodile. "She just wanted to be free," Killian said. "Just wanted to live her own life. And I just wanted to be with her, and now she's gone. She was his wife and he killed her." Cora's on her side watching him as he speaks, and Killian turns to look at her. The story means something to her, he can tell, but she doesn't say what. 

"Ah," she says, finally, like she understands. It's good. They're on the same page, she knows what Rumpelstiltskin is, she knows that he has to die. She could kill Rumpelstiltskin herself, Killian realizes, and suddenly wonders why it is that Cora needs him at all. He turns away from her, feels the warmth of the fire they built together and the shelter of the building Cora made around him. He hears her turn away as well, and begins to drift off to sleep.

In his last moments awake, he thinks he hears her voice. "I used to love him," she says.

*

Each day is the same as the others, and Killian doesn't know how long he's been here. He never remembers the days that came before. "You won't feel it," Cora says. The island is familiar and strange. He's under Cora's power here, she made this refuge and the force that protects it. He wonders why, with all her power, she needs him with her at all.

Cora lifts the firewood, for once using her arms rather than magic, and Killian is struck by how strong she is, how used to labor her body seems although she is completely a queen. Milah was strong too, her slender arms strengthened by years carrying wool. Killian thinks of the night they met, how she nearly crushed the metal beer mug in her hand when she spoke of her marriage. Her prison. She begged him to take her away, and when Killian pried her fingers off to clasp her hand between his he could see the indentations she'd made in her frustration. So much strength, so chained. So much beauty.

It's Killian's job to catch fish for dinner. At the shore he reaches his hand into the water and feels it run over Milah's name carved into his arm. She is always with him, etched into his body. How she loved being at sea, she'd run across the ship like the waves meant nothing and swim naked in the ocean like she was born to it. "Can you imagine I was a spinner?" she once said, and he laughed, and then held her. It ached him to think of her all day spinning in a dimly lit room, the last place that she belonged, and he could only bear the thought by imagining all the many bright open seas they would visit together. Now she is dead, he thinks, buried in the floor of the ocean where light will never fall, and it was her own husband who killed her. 

At night Killian lies next to Cora and tells her about Milah. Cora listens, and Killian thinks she understands. Cora might have liked Milah, he thinks, although he's not sure why. "She just wanted to be free," he says. "And now she's gone."

"Ah," Cora says. She's there with him. She understands. It feels comfortable to lie next to her, like sharing a berth with a friend. She whispers something softly as Killian drifts into sleep, something that Killian doesn't quite hear.

*

On every day of that endless day Killian asks Cora to teach him to use magic to take out a heart. She demonstrates on Killian, takes his heart out and puts it back. Killian thinks it should frighten him, seeing his heart out of his body and in her hands, but it doesn't, and it might be because they've done this every day for twenty-eight years. 

There's a peculiar intimacy when she reaches her hand into his chest. He thinks he'd like to try it on her, but he knows better than to ask. 

"You won't feel it," Cora says at the beginning of each day. Killian doesn't know how long it's been, he never remembers a day after he lives it, and every day is always the same. There's the wood for the fire, and fish for dinner, the island and the water, Milah's name carved into his arm and Cora's strength making the magic that surrounds him. He watches Cora lift firewood, as if to prove she can, and he wonders what life has made her body so used to labor. When this day is over maybe she'll tell him. She's so strong in every way, Killian wonders why she could possibly need him. It occurs to him, maybe, that she might just not want to be alone.

At night he lies next to her and tells her his story. He tells Cora about the ocean, and about Milah. "I just wanted to be with her," he says, and he turns and Cora's watching him. He ends his story with Milah's death, and with Rumpelstiltskin, and Cora's listening, and Killian knows it's affecting her but he doesn't know why. "Ah," she says, and there's so much hurt in her voice. Their beds are a handsbreadth apart, Cora is close enough to reach, and suddenly there's nothing Killian wants more than to kiss her, because she is beautiful and strong and in pain, and because she's his friend. It would change everything, Killian understands, change what they're going to do when they reach Storybrooke and even change the fabric of all the magic around them. She's close to him, and doesn't pull away, and he understands at that moment that she would be willing. But he hasn't touched another woman since Milah's death, and he needs to kill the man who killed her. 

Kilian turns away and clenches his hand at his side. He can't look at Cora for another moment. The days go on and are always the same, and Killian knows that when the morning comes he won't remember. The days will pass and nothing will change and he won't feel it, not until it's time to go to Storybrooke and to kill Rumpelstiltskin.

Cora turns away as well, and Killian listens to her breathe. She doesn't say anything, not until Killian is almost asleep, in the very last moment he's awake, the very last moment of the endless day. "I used to love him," she says.


End file.
